advantages of water jet machining

• Cheaper than other processes.
• Cut virtually any material:
• pre hardened steel
• mild steel
• exotics like Titanium, Inconel, Hastalloy
• gummy 304 stainless
• (most steels cut at the same speed, whether hardened, or not.)
• Copper, Brass, Aluminum: They are a cinch!
• brittle materials like glass, ceramic, quartz, stone.
• laminates
• flammable materials
• Cut thin stuff, or thick stuff
• Make all sorts of shapes with only one tool.
• Cut wide range of thickness’ to reasonable tolerance up to 2” (50mm) thick
• Up to 5” (127mm) or thicker where tolerance not important, or in soft materials.
• No Heat Generated / No heat affected zones - this is cold cutting!
• No mechanical stresses
• Cut virtually any shape:
• Fast Setup:
• Only one tool to qualify / No tool changes required
• Fast turn around on the machine. Make a part, then 2 minutes be making a completely different part from a completely different material.
• Leaves a satin smooth finish, thus reducing secondary operations
• Clean cutting process without gasses or oils
• Makes its own start holes
• Narrow kerf removes only a small amount of material.
• Your "scrap" metal is easier to recycle or re-use (no oily chips!)
• Modern systems are now very easy to learn.
• You can trade off tolerance vs speed from feature to feature on your part.
• Can easily switch between high production, and single piece production, on the same machine, with no extra effort.
• Are very safe. (No, they don't explode, thanks to the nearly incompressible property of water.)
• Draw the part / cut the part. It is that easy! Everyone in your shop can learn to use it quickly.
• No "scaley" edges, which makes it easier to make a high quality weld
• Machine composite materials, or materials where dissimilar materials are glued together
• Machine stacks of thin parts all at once.